Hotaru
Chapter 1: Ostinato
Uzumaki Naruto ran. Throughout his life, he had always ran, as if running would allow him to get far away from everything that ever seemed to go wrong, but more importantly, he was late.
Naruto was a normal young boy, maybe twelve years of age, that couldn't be considered normal by any stretch of the word, but will be used to describe him nonetheless. Now, by no means should anyone of his type be considered normal but Naruto, as most protagonists tend to be, was more special. First off, he was wearing a bright-orange jumpsuit, with blue patches covering both his shoulders, and blue shinobi sandals covering his feet. He had tape wrapped around his right leg, holding a small pouch in its place, and a larger, and more round one hanging off the back of his belt. He had spiked blonde hair, was tanned, and blue eyes, not a particularly uncommon combination. What were quite unique were two things. His face was scarred with six whisker-like marks, three on each cheek, and he contained the Kyuubi, the nine-tailed fox.
Yes, he contained it, and was off to the Shinobi Academy to attempt to pass his graduation exam, and become a full-fledged shinobi of the Hidden Village, Konoha.
It was his first attempt and many thought he would fail. Naruto had passed the non-practical exams by the skin of his teeth and he even managed to successfully perform a Kawarimi, the replacement technique, and was among the best at using the Henge, the transformation technique. So why was it that he wasn't expected to pass?
Bunshin, the dreaded clone technique.
What is considered one of the easiest jutsu out there, Naruto could not do.
Naruto just couldn't understand it. He attempted it everyday after school and would slowly get better at it until, by sundown, he could manage three clones. He would then come to school the next day, exalted, and promptly fail to do it again. And this pattern would continue, until Naruto found much better things to do with his time.
Today, he woke up four hours early for school and trained, and trained, and trained, slowly losing track of time until he did it! He had made three clones! Unfortunately, as he looked up at the sun, he saw that he was at least twenty minutes late to class. And so he ran.
He ran through the forests of Konoha, said to be created by the Shodaime Hokage, and it was his dream to surpass him. He ran by a few ponds and a roaring river, reminding himself of the Nidaime Hokage, and he would surpass him too. Naruto ran through the village and past the Hokage tower where the old man, the Sandaime Hokage worked, and thought to himself that he would surpass him as well.
Naruto stopped, and starred up at the faces carved into the mountain. He saw the first three Hokages and one more. The Yondaime Hokage, the slayer of the Kyuubi, the greatest Hokage, and his idol. He would surpass him.
He ran into a large building, up a few flights of stairs, and paused only momentarily before he flung open the door in front of him.
"…..uto?"
A Few seconds before, in the room…
A slightly tanned man, with a large scar across his nose and black hair tied in a ponytail that resembled a pineapple walked out of a door, with what looked like a young boy, located near the front of the room. He wore a green flak-jacket over a blue bodysuit and held a clipboard in his left hand. He was congratulating and turned to look out to the room. Not seeing his target, he went to his clipboard and called out.
"Uzumaki Naruto, come take your test."
A silence fell over the room; nobody had seen him that morning. A disappointed look briefly came over the man's face before he once more called out.
"Nar…"
Naruto came flying through the door, stumbling a bit before regaining his posture.
"…..uto?"
"Here, Iruka-sensei!" he managed to gasped out.
"Naruto," the man now identified as Iruka said as he gave the boy a stern glare," you were late to class and almost missed your test. You're lucky that you're the last one otherwise I would've been forced to automatically fail you." His eyes softened at Naruto's worn-down state though and then said, "Come to the back room, Naruto."
"Yes, Iruka-sensei." the boy mumbled out as he let his head bow, ashamed, and followed, hearing the jokes his classmates were making about him as he walked passed the desks.
He made his way back to the back room where Iruka, and another teacher, that dressed similarly to Iruka and went by the name of Shinichiro Mizuki, were seated.
"Naruto, in order to pass this exam and become a genin, we need you to create at least two Bunshin. You may begin whenever you're ready." stated Mizuki.
Getting only a brief nod in response, they watched as Naruto took on a look of complete concentration as he brought his hands into the signs of Ram, Snake, and ending in Tiger. Poof!
Naruto heard a clipboard drop and his face fell into a look of pure depression. 'I have to go through another year of the academy.' he thought.
He opened his eyes and saw the looks of great surprise etched into the faces of Mizuki and Iruka and he excitedly looks to his left and right to see that he had successfully created four clones!
"Congratulations Naruto, we believed you could do it!" Iruka told him. Both the teachers had smiles on faces but Iuka's look much more genuine Naruto noticed. He had never much liked Mizuki anyways. "Here is your headband, wear with pride."
Naruto tied his new headband across his forehead, in the traditional place, before he started jumping around, exclaiming, "Yatta! I'm a ninja now!"
I would say that everyone in the village knew this now.
The Next Morning…
Naruto awoke the next morning, feeling better than he had ever had. He trudged through the dirty jumpsuits and empty ramen cup on his bedroom floor. He'd lived here for longer than he could remember. The old man had told him that he had been moved here from the orphanage when he decided to become a when he was six and had a caretaker until he was eight. He didn't remember anything of course, nobody that young does.
He moved into the kitchen, Spartan bare with only a table with a single chair, fridge, microwave, a few cabinets, and a window looking out on the village; a perfect view of the Hokage Monument.
Naruto made a quick meal of instant ramen, before getting dressed into one of his jumpsuits and opening the door, almost running into the outstretched hand of an ANBU member, about to knock on his door it seemed. Quickly jumping back, Naruto realized it was just a messenger and waited.
"Hokage-sama requests your presence." the ANBU simply stated before disappearing in a small cloud of smoke.
Naruto shrugged before walking out the door, locking it, and running off.
I guess "I'll go see the old mad after I get my I.D. I wonder what he wants to see me for though, probably to congratulate me,""
Time skip
Naruto stood in front of the large wooden doors to the Hokage office and knocked. He had already been cleared by his secretary to see him but Naruto wasn't going to run straight in again, he didn't enjoy being tackled by more than ten ANBU.
"Come in Naruto-kun!" a kind voice called out from beyond the door.
"Hey old man, guess what? I'm a ninja now! Your hat will be mine in no time!" Naruto exclaimed.
"That's good to hear, I'm getting too old for this. Anyways I wanted to tell you something now that you're a genin."
"What? Are you going to send me out on some super cool mission to save a princess, or to slay a dragon or…."
Sarutobi Hiruzen, the Sandaime Hokage and the old man, let out a sigh as the boy in front of him went on about all the cool missions he thought that ninja did. 'There's no way I can tell him about the Kyuubi at this point, he's not mature enough. I've already told him I would tell him something though.'
"Naruto-kun?" his voice breaking Naruto out of his rant.
"So what is it, old man?"
Hiruzen reached into a drawer in his desk and silently ripped a picture in half.
"Here." he stated as he handed it over to Naruto.
"Half of a picture? What's on the other half?" Naruto asked.
"What matters isn't what's on the other half, Naruto-kun, its what is on this half. It's your mother, Uzumaki Kushina."
Naruto stared blankly at the picture, tears welling up in his eyes. He looked up at Hiruzen as if expecting something else.
"That's all I have to give you today Naruto-kun. I still can't tell you about your father."
Naruto looked like he wanted to say something before glancing back down at his mother. He mumbled his thanks and walked out of the room.
AN: So I'd like to start by thanking anyone that's reading this. This is my first story and I'm glad that my summary was good enough to get you to start and my story was at least interesting enough to get you to finish.
Now, I'd like to clarify some things. Naruto is basically at the skill level right now as the beginning of canon - the Kage Bunshin. Since he trained so much the morning of the test, he lost enough chakra (without it having a night to restore) to be able to perform the Bunshin. He is twelve right now, two year ahead of canon, because I assumed that he would be fourteen while everybody else would be twelve normally.
If you have any questions, put it in a review or just PM.
Peace Out!